


A dash of Fashion

by ZScalantian



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Dalmasca (Ivalice Alliance), Fashion & Couture, Gen, Imperialism and efforts to survive and preserve your culture, Ivalice (Ivalice Alliance), Moogle(s) (Final Fantasy), Post-War, Viera (Final Fantasy), Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23226592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZScalantian/pseuds/ZScalantian
Summary: Quick snapshots of Dalmascan fashion, culture, and economy, with folk music and childhood education sprinkled in.  And Eruyt Village, because Viera and the long standing question of why bikini armor.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8
Collections: Worldbuilding Exchange 2020





	1. The Sundries Shop

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fadeverb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/gifts).



The Sundries Shop

Migelo bustled around his shop checking inventory: perfumes, incense, potions, eye drops, and ethers. Lamp oil and lamps, candles, fire-starters. Cups and pitchers, bowls and platters, gleaming racks of knives, spoons, and two-tined forks. Waist-high jugs of grain and nuts and dried fruits, each with its own wooden measuring scoop tied to the mouth of the jug. Barrels and bottles, both empty and full of imported liquors. Hand mirrors, combs, ribbons, thread, pins, and needles. A wide assortment of the odds and ends that every household needed. 

The corner that held bolts of fabric and square stacks of scrap fabric for mending was lacking. Not a huge problem, as the fabric he got in was most often excess from tailors and seamstresses, but he didn’t like seeing empty shelves. There were a few bundles of basic cotton cloth left, but nothing bright to draw a customer’s eyes.

One of the orphans he’d hired came around the corner then, the daughter of an old friend. Migelo held up a clawed hand to catch her attention.

“Ah, Penelo. When you see Vaan next, ask if he can run down to Cici’s, then over to Javet’s to check if they have any extra fabric they’d let off for a good price.”

She nodded brightly. “Alright, I’ll let him know.”

He turned back to his inspection of the shelves. It seemed he lacked for dyes as well. Some supplies and wares were still hard to come by. The war was over, but it would be long before Dalmasca and Rabanastre recovered. If they ever did. Or would Archades swallow them into its own image? 

“Bah, is no good thinking like that,” he muttered, clearing the thoughts from his head. Still, he made a note to bring in more of the bright colors - turquoise, crimson, sunny yellow, - that were the staple palette of a Dalmascan wardrobe.


	2. The Tailor’s Boutique

The Tailor’s Boutique 

“Who was that that just left?” Cici came out from the back room with a vest and trouser set hanging from her arms. No one was in the shop, but the jangling door bell was still ringing.

One of Katejina’s long ears turned toward her, but the viera didn’t look up from the scarves she was organizing on a rack. “One of Migelo’s errand runners.”

Cici set the clothes down on the long wooden counter and began wrapping the vest in brown paper. Would it be crude of her to try and get the paper back after delivery? Yes, probably. Unfortunate. She needed every cent she could save, but a reputation for cheapness could only harm her business. “Ah, good old Migelo. He’s good to look after the orphans that way. What is it he needs?”

“Looking for extra fabric for the Sundries shop.”

“Well…” She looked around the narrow shop - the handful of cloth and wood manikins modeling her work, the folding screens and low stools tucked neatly to the sides. The manikins looked a little shabby, but the sunstone lanterns produced a satisfactory gleam and glitter from the tall glass mirrors, brightening the windowless room. Nothing here for Migelo. She returned to the door of the backroom, even though its contents were etched in her mental inventory. Mostly empty shelves, with only a few bolts of dyed or pattern-woven cotton, silk, and wool remaining of the old prosperity. One dear and lovely bolt of indigo-dyed velvet. Spools of lace from Sybil, a widow now, who’d moved down to Lowtown, doing her tatting by lantern light. Fine leather from the tanners at the South End of the Bazaar. A rack of embroidery thread, now sadly limited in selection, and most poorly-made.

With a pang, she recalled the days before the war, and even further back, before the plagues. The beauteous rainbow of colors, the finger-pleasing selection of textures. Most of what she had now was already earmarked for this garment or that one. 

“I think we’ve only got scraps for mending available, maybe something for a Moogle. I’m using that wool -” she pointed to a drape of drab wool dyed to a pleasant green by dandelion blossoms, “- for Swena’s vest and accents to her bodice, and that leather is for Tamiel’s new trousers.” And the portly Bangaa would certainly be in need of most all of it. She let out a sigh, shaking her head. “I shouldn’t complain. Most everyone is low on supplies in these dim days.” 

After the plagues, then the war, so many young people dead, the farmlands of Dalmasca weren’t producing as they once had. Few farms had seeded cotton and flax last year, and drab wool was nearly non-existent, though she supposed that was what would come back first, as Giza rabbits bred like… well, rabbits. Fabric made from cockatrice and nanna feathers would hopefully be back by next year. As for silk… she shivered. The catastrophe of Nabudis had greatly decimated the vast mulberry orchards of Nabradia. Rabanastre’s walled gardens could not make up the deficit. 

For now, her daily walks through the bazaar tended to result in fabrics and leathers made of wolf pelts. Aside from the bad luck inherent in dressing in the skin of an animal grown fat on corpses, the quality was hit or miss, and they didn’t take dyes well. If only a hunter would bring in something from one of the many wooly gator species. Perhaps she could put up a mark.

Scarves properly arrayed, Katejina went past her to straighten the shelf of leather cuffs. The viera looked at them critically and asked, “Perhaps we should start learning imperial styles?”

Cici glanced over as well - the cuffs were embroidered with traditional patterns from the desert and plains, as well as some of her own designs, and only appealed to the occupying Archadians as souvenirs or novelties. “I suppose we’ll have to start catering to them now.” She didn’t really want to, but business was business.

She would _never_ give up selling Dalmascan styles, the vests and bright sashes, the loose-fitting trousers, but she thought of the outfits worn by off-duty Archadian soldiers - they featured less embroidery, more paneling, more embossing… From a fashion perspective, there were exciting ideas at play there. “It wouldn’t hurt to have a few things.” 

She mostly did tailor-made, but a few ready-made small things for homesick soldiers…

“Wrap me up some of those scraps, I’ll take them over to Migelo’s, since I’m going to deliver this to Lunais.”

“Very well.”

Now where, by the gods, could she find someone to teach her imperial styles?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize that typically in XII, viera come with four-letter names, but I dug Katejina out of a viera name list from the Tactics games and liked that Nordic ‘j’ a lot, reminiscent of Ktjn and Krjn and Mjrn. So Cici here got the four-letter name instead, in a tiny nod to Coco Chanel, because that’s where my brain went when trying to think up names for a seamstress.


	3. Lowtown Scholar

Lowtown Scholar 

  
The brocade vest was heavy in Elann’s hands, turquoise and silver shot through with cloth-of-gold thread, with intricate beaded embroidery along the hems. He’d worn it last for Lady Ashe’s wedding. Oh, Faram, it felt like a lifetime ago. But as he wouldn’t bow to those stuck-up imperials, he’d moved his little one and himself to Lowtown before they decided to throw him into Nalbina like some common criminal, instead of the respected scholar he was. There was little call for fine clothing in the crowded tunnels, and holding onto this vest did neither Elann or his daughter any good. 

When he held it in his hands, though, he recalled not only the flights of white doves, the flower petals raining from every rooftop and upper story window on that blessed day, but the birds released at his own wedding, and the feasts he’d hosted in his home, attended by merchants, minor nobles, and other scholars.

Lillia sat with her knees pulled up, her chin resting on them. Her gathered trouser hems and laced leather shoes were stained dark with the muddy grime of the underground. Her face was smudged, too. “Daddy, I’m hungry.”

“I know, little heart.” 

No, the fine clothing was of no use down here, and he wasn’t the only one forced to that realization. Secondhand stores and pawn shops sprouted in Lowtown’s dark alleys like mushrooms. He could give up the vest for gil now, and return for it when matters improved. 

They left their apartment, a former grain warehouse subdivided into space for five families. The streets down here were dim and crowded, with only an occasional shaft of light gleaming through a grate in the avenues above. A faint, sticky humidity clung to his skin - dampness creeping in from the nearby waterways, and the bodily fog of many people living crammed together.

He squeezed Lillia’s hand. “We have an errand to run, but then what say that we pick up some falafel?” 

Her eyes lit up. Street food, but she loved it, and he could afford the scant cost.

They headed toward the South sprawl. A jovial Seeq owned several shops down there and seemed a decent fellow, likely to give a fair price and give fair warning before selling the vest away. But the gil Elann got today wouldn’t hold out forever. 

But what could he do? He taught classes here in Lowtown - the imperials may have occupied the university, but they’d restarted the neighborhood schools; he didn’t trust them not to rewrite Dalmasca’s history to something that better served their nation-image. But he wasn’t about to charge the folks of Lowtown for the lessons, nor the orphans that slept on the streets, pockets and bellies empty.

They were almost upon the Seeq’s shop when an idea struck him. He still had friends up in the high streets. Perhaps one would be willing to sponsor him. They need not tell the imperials that they were giving him money, and he could continue to teach the children reading, writing, maths, and most important, a true history.

He looked down at the brocade vest. Perhaps he would have to surrender it for less time than he’d thought.


	4. Bartering

Bartering 

Penelo wrapped her hands around her ankles, forehead pressed to her knees. She felt her spine pop and she stood back up. The leather of her new clothes stretched and flexed easily as she moved. Mooglecraft truly was amazing. And expensive. She would never have dreamed of owning an outfit like this.

She’d run an errand for Migelo out to the aerodrome, and some street musicians were playing out front. A bangaa wearing a harness carrying three drums laid out a lively beat, bells wrapped around his ankles and wrists jingling in time. His two hume companions matched their melodies to him. One plucked at the strings of a rebab, turquoise inlaid into its deep bowl and thin neck, while the other blew into a multi-piped instrument Penelo had never learned the name of. Despite the armored Imperial soldiers standing nearby, they were playing Dalmascan folk songs.

She hadn’t danced, not really, since the fall of Nalbina, but the moves and rhythms her parents taught her came back quickly as her body moved to the familiar music. When the song ended, applause rang out from the gathered audience. She’d taken the praise humbly, thanking the musicians. Ready to complete her errand, she’d hurried off, but a hume girl little older than her caught up to her and stopped her.

The girl asked for dancing lessons and was willing to trade clothing in return. It turned out she was the daughter of an airship crew member and had recently outgrown a lightly worn Dalmascan-style sailor suit. Made by moogles using their own tightly-guarded craft secrets, the leather was soft and malleable, not restrictive at all. The little leather wings on the shoulders were a distinctively moogle design flourish. 

As Penolo’s own clothes were starting to become snug, both pairs of broad-legged shorts let out as much as she could get them, her blouses expanded with new panels in the back, she eagerly made the trade. Every day at noon, for a week straight, she went to the fountain plaza to teach her new friend before the airship flew off again.

It had been near a month since then, and Penelo was still feeling very pleased and impressed with her new outfit. Aside from the ease of movement, it was proving very easy to clean, as the moogles had treated it in some fashion that spills wiped right off of. She’d laundered her old clothing as best she could, but there were still stains in the fabric she’d never get out.

“Hey, Penelo, you seen Kytes around?”

She turned from the shelf of incense, perfumes, and oils she was rearranging, oldest to newest, in hopes of selling off the old stock before it lost its potency. Vaan grinned over the counter at her. There was a studied quality to his smile that made her suspicious at once. 

“I haven’t seen him since the morning,” she said. “Come around and help me with these.”

He did, and the stripe of bright red wrapped around his waist caught her eyes. The crimson and gold sash was vivid and of good quality, but it was odd for Vaan to splurge on clothing. 

“Where did you get that?”

Vaan smirked as he pulled a bottle off the shelf. “Traded for it,” he quipped.

She considered him skeptically. “With what? Rat pelts?”

He flipped the bottle spinning into the air and caught it neatly before she’d finished sucking in breath to tell him to be careful, and looked sideways at her with one blue eye.

Her breath stayed caught in her chest, tense. “You stole it.”

He frowned a little. “I took it from a buckethead.” He uncorked the bottle, sniffing to determine freshness. A faint cinnamon odor rose, a ghost of fragrance. “I mean, he stole it from us in the first place. It’s only fair we take it back.” He set the bottle back on the shelf, right at the front. “It’s basically our duty as Dalmascans.”


	5. Nabradian Noblewoman

Nabradian Noblewoman 

Ashe studied her reflection. The blurry woman who watched her back from the beaten metal mirror was no Dalmascan princess, but a minor Nabradian noblewoman. She ran her hands over the collared blouse, heavy white faille silk and gold accoutrements, and down to the abbreviated leather shorts with their small apron. A style she’d always thought must be rather less comfortable than the roomier Dalmascan short trousers and now knew for a fact, was. Her fingers drifted back upwards, tracing over the bare skin around her navel, under and over her breasts, raising gooseflesh. Her fingers settled on the brooch at the base of her throat, in the hollow between her collar bones. The ring on her hand gleamed in the mirror’s surface.

Her mouth tightened. Plenty of Nabradian nobility had sought shelter in Rabanastre during their country’s brief civil war and thereby escaped the cataclysm in Nabudis. Disguising herself as one of them was only slim protection from Archades, but any step she could take, she would, however bitter it tasted to her. Wearing this made her feel closer to her husband, her freedom, her grave. 

The cries of the gossip-mongers rang in her head. The Dalmascan princess was dead. The whole kingdom mourned her death, as they mourned her father’s. As they had mourned her elder brothers and her mother, years ago. As they had mourned Rasler, all too recently. She had died that day, and on the day of Basch’s betrayal, and when Marquis Ondore had announced her death, she had died again.

How could her uncle have done that to her? Abandon her, as good as throwing her to the Archadians, for how could she fight without allies? The resistance was small, and Vossler urged caution. What other course could he, when they knew not who was friend or foe? But she would rise. From the grave they’d put her in, like a wraith or cursed skeleton, she _would_ rise, and make the empire pay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It always bothers me when there’s no effort to integrate PC and NPC fashion, so of course I come up with headcanons to justify it. So the player meets no one dressed like Ashe because the party doesn’t encounter any Nabradian nobles. And it’s a good disguise for her, because it suits her upbringing and age and her anger at the empire, without giving away “Amalia’s” real identity.


	6. Eruyt Village

Eruyt Village 

Studying viera culture was an exercise in patience, Mila decided. She had initially set out to be a member of a hunting clan but became distressed at the lack of information in the clan primer on so many different species. Being of a curious nature, she’d left off hunting, and turned to speaking with hunters from clans all over Ivalice, increasing the pages of the primer. She was interested in more than just the dangerous wildlife - she wrote detailed entries for races and cultures too.

Unfortunately, very few spoke with the isolated and taciturn viera. She found even their wayfarers standoffish, unwilling to discuss the forests they had left behind. So she had taken it upon herself to visit their villages and speak with them. Their typical response was that they wished to be left alone and not contribute to the primer.

Her wings fluttered in indignation, recalling the rebuffs she’d received. She had battled dragons for knowledge and would not let a few introverts stop her. If they would not speak with her, then she would simply observe. Mila had spent nearly two years traveling steadily deeper into Golmore Jungle, from the outskirt viera settlements where her presence was humored, to here in Eruyt Village, where some inhabitants refused even to acknowledge her existence.

She was spending the day sketching their unusual outfits, which showed almost no influence from other races or regions of Ivalice. Like every viera settlement she’d been to, the genders lived apart. The women built their village in the ambient light of the upper branches, and the men made their home in the dimness among the roots of the giant trees. Both genders wore leather tanned from coeurl pelts, fine armor made from hellhound horns and biding mantis carapaces - she hadn’t encountered a mantis yet, and was making preliminary notes for that entry based on the spoils brought back by Eruyt hunters - and spun sheer silk and lace from the giant spider webs that crisscrossed the jungle. (Mila had almost gotten stuck in one on her journey here.) The outfits appeared flimsy but were, in truth, quite strong.

In no other village had she seen armor worn habitually. Her working theory was that as the wildlife here deep in the jungle was more dangerous than that on the outskirts, the armor was more necessary here, even for those who rarely left the safety of the village. And of course, the outfits were color-coded, silver armor for salve- and craft-makers, and black for the wood-warders who hunted through the trees. The silver armor, she presumed, was more delicate and less durable, though she wouldn’t be able to test that theory until she got her hands on some.

Possibly it was a matter of camouflage. Black absorbed the tree-shadow, but silver flickered and gleamed, reflecting every stray drop of light. She knew that from experience, as coeurls and hellhounds took one look at her silky white fur and pounced, til the sharp end of her spear taught them better.

As for Eruyt village and its counterpart’s particularly revealing fashion sense… Well, Mila was aware that moogles were more private in that matter than most other races. Her jumpsuit was modest and sensible, covering most of her fur. On the opposite end of the scale, the average seeq wore only a loincloth, perhaps with some pouches tied to it to serve as pockets. 

Clothing in Eruyt seemed less a matter of covering what needed covered, and more a means of emphasizing the athleticism and attractiveness of its wearer. Only women above, and only men below, but there was still a need to show off.

And it was true that the lack of covering made sense in the humid atmosphere of the jungle. She was lucky moogles only sweated through their paws, or she’d be dripping like a hume. That did not mean she couldn’t overheat. Mila set her papers back in her satchel and made her way to the fountain in the middle of the village. Sitting at its edge, she dangled her paws in the cool water. Much better.

Sunlight streamed around her, falling leaves, dust motes, and pale white butterflies dancing through the still air, while the peacefulness of the village lulled her into a sleepy haze. Maybe the reason the viera never left and didn’t like others coming in was that they would disturb this tranquility.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spider silk is one of the strongest substances known to man. Perhaps even the shimmery fabric functions as armor.


End file.
